


What Remains

by EAU1636



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Episode: s03e02 Arcadia, M/M, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EAU1636/pseuds/EAU1636
Summary: There was no pattern to this thing between them, no routine or reason. It just happened, sometimes. Weeks might go by between, or only days. A few times it had been more than one night in a row.
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 17
Kudos: 24





	What Remains

The sweltering air was thick and stifling, though dusk had already started to settle over the golden fields and silver silos surrounding the farm. Peter wiped the slick of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and lifted down one of the last boxes, sending a whirl of dust up as he set it on the floor.

Hope had been asking him for weeks to get rid of some of his old things up in the attic, to make room to store the childrens’ out of season clothes. He hadn’t touched these boxes once in the five years since he’d packed them. He’d been a different man then. No need now for souvenirs of what he’d left behind.

He opened the top flap on the box. This one was filled with clothes. He certainly wouldn’t be needing those. Hadn’t worn a suit since they’d gone to Hope’s cousin’s wedding last spring.

It made him smile now, to think of wearing a suit and tie everyday, and of the way he used to groan in the mornings, having to get out of bed and drag himself to work at what seemed such an ungodly hour.

Now he was up before the sun more often than not, and his lean, muscular arms and callused hands were testament to long, hard days of labor. But it was the sort of work that quieted his mind and deepened his breath, that made him sleep like a stone at night. It had been the right choice, coming here, starting over.

He pulled a stack of shirts from the box and put them into the pile of things to be given to the church rummage sale. Below the shirts were a handful of ties, a dark rainbow of silken shades. He had cared so much, back then, about looking the part.

It had knocked him off balance, when he’d first come here, being unable to fit in, sticking out like a sore thumb. He had been inescapably an other, a curiosity in their small town, had heard the whispers when he and Hope went to the diner Friday nights or sat in their pew on a Sunday morning. He’d seen the smirks when he called things by the wrong names, when he lacked the knowledge folks around here seemed to carry in their blood, when every word he spoke only showed he’d never belong in this world they were born into. But he’d stuck it out, let himself get knocked down a few pegs, learned to laugh at himself a bit. In time he’d worn into the grooves of the place, the people, the new life he’d made for himself here.

He set aside a deep blue tie, an old favorite, to save for weddings or funerals, and put the rest in the pile to be donated.

As he grabbed hold of the last shirt in the box, another tie fell out from the folds, almost as if it had been carefully wrapped inside it, hidden away. It fell back down onto the bottom of the box with a whisper. Not a sleek tie like the others, a shabby one. The sort he’d never have worn.

Peter stared at it, lying there alone at the bottom of the box, his breath catching in his throat.

He’d found it about a month before he left Oxford. He’d been leaning down to put his socks on and had caught sight of the tie half hidden beneath his bed.

He’d hesitated a moment, wishing he hadn’t seen it.

Morse couldn’t be called neat by any stretch of the imagination. He was forgetful too, about that sort of thing. It wasn’t casual intimacy that had led to it being left, just carelessness. Still, it felt intimate, now, seeing it lying there.

Peter set his jaw and snatched it up, holding it tightly in his hands without looking at it.

It wasn’t as if he could just bring it into the nick and drop it by Morse’s desk. “You left this at mine last night.”

And it would be just as impossible to give it to Morse the next time. It would be too much like evidence, proof of what they’d done before and would do again. It would be violating something between them somehow, to hand it to him. Would mean that he’d thought about Morse, maybe, when he found it. That he’d kept it because he’d known he’d hear that late night knock again, that he’d stayed awake staring at the ceiling and listening for the sound, longing for it even.

He didn’t want Morse to get things the wrong way round about what they were to one another, which was nothing. That was the only reason he’d placed it carefully in the back of the bureau drawer.

There was no pattern to this thing between them, no routine or reason. It just happened, sometimes. Weeks might go by between, or only days. A few times it had been more than one night in a row.

Once, right after it started, Peter had ignored the knock. He’d gone stark still at the sound of it, barely daring to breathe, fistfuls of sheets tight in his hands, biting down on his lip until he tasted blood. But the next day was unbearable, choking on the want, the regret, until he let himself give Morse a look of such gaping, open hunger that he wondered the whole nick hadn’t noticed. He’d never hated himself, or Morse, more than he did then. But when the knock came again that night, it didn’t go unanswered.

There must have been nights a knock came and Peter wasn’t there to answer it. There were nights he listened for it, breath heavy in his chest, until morning light began to creep through the curtains, and the knock never came.

But mostly he knew when it was coming, could feel it, like a storm building, crackling in the air between them, until there was no holding it back.

They never left the pub together, not after that first time. Never went anywhere together, before or after. Never spoke about it, rarely uttered a word during. What went on between them only existed in the black and blue hours before dawn.

It had begun as something closer to hurt than affection, something closer to hate than lust, but it had become an ache so strong Peter wished he could cut it out of himself, wondered what would be left of himself if he did.

There were still girls, of course. Always had been plenty of girls. Meaningless, most of them, more hobby than heart, but they kept him occupied, made him feel good, for a while.

And then a couple of days after finding the tie, he’d met Hope. She was different, somehow. Beautiful, dark hair and deep brown eyes. Smarter than him by a longshot, with a wild streak that kept him guessing. She had the sort of easy confidence he’d only ever feigned. They had a whirlwind couple of weeks where he practically lived at her place.

And then one night she told him the news. He’d been quiet, faced with what had always seemed a death sentence. But somehow he found it was more like a clean slate, a version of himself he’d always wanted but never dared to hope for. Even he had to grin, at the obviousness of it, her name and what she meant to him.

Peter didn’t think Morse had come round, since he and Hope had started up. Maybe he could tell something had changed, though Peter never mentioned it. Maybe he caught on when Peter stopped dropping by the pub after work. Or maybe he had come, had knocked and waited and then turned away, to walk home in the empty night, unanswered.

Peter tried not to think about it. Not to think about Morse at all. Whatever it was they’d been doing, it was over now. He told himself it was a relief, to know there would be a stopping point, a line they couldn’t cross, an end to it. But Morse didn’t know that yet.

Probably he should have told him some other way, or told him sooner. But he couldn’t somehow. And they didn’t owe one another anything anyway. It wasn’t as though it meant anything. As though Morse meant anything to him. It was just something that had happened, for a while, that wouldn’t happen again.

So he made sure to tell Morse the same way he’d tell anyone who was no one to him. Had waited until after he’d told most of the others. He’d told Morse when they were alone, but not alone. An aisle at Richardson’s was as good a place as any, with the busy employees just out of earshot and the neon lights buzzing overhead.

He’d been sort of afraid what Morse might do or say. Afraid of how Morse might look, when he told him. He had that face that gave too much away, and those eyes, always telling you what you didn’t want to know.

Peter’s guts had been leaden. He wished, more than ever before, that none of it had ever happened. Even more than the morning after that first time, when he knew they’d crossed a line they could never come back from. He wanted to be able to tell Morse he was going, easy as you like, and not have it mean anything more. In the end he did manage to say it in an offhand way, as though he just happened to think to mention it. As though he didn’t think Morse would mind being the last to know.

And it had gone alright. Morse had been caught off guard, that was obvious, but if he felt something stronger than surprise, he hid it well. And Peter was thankful for it.

So that was that, he’d thought. Water under. Best forgotten.

But then Morse had gone and volunteered to do the drop for Verity Richardson, though by all rights it should have been Peter. That was Morse all over, the selfish prick, always so quick to sacrifice himself, to show he didn’t think he mattered a toss to anyone. And he didn’t matter, not to Peter. He only cared because Morse was so likely to screw it up somehow and it was the girl’s life on the line. In the car beforehand Peter was coursing with rage, biting out every word he spoke. It had taken all the restraint he had not to turn around and shake Morse by the shoulders and tell him he’d bloody well be careful. For Verity’s sake.

Later, when Thursday drew the car up alongside the drop point, and Peter had just been able to make out the outline of Morse’s body, the body he knew every line and curve of in the dark, lying motionless in the grass, he’d been out the door and running before the car had even stopped. But the suffocating, frantic panic he’d felt was only for the girl’s sake, of course.

Afterwards, when it was clear Morse was alright, and Peter’s heart had finally slowed back to a steady pace, he’d been speechless with fury, and gladder than ever that he was going. That he wouldn’t have to be there to watch the next time Morse put himself in harm’s way. Sometimes it was like watching a moth to a flame, a creature with no sense of self-preservation, something strange and beautiful destroying itself. Not that Morse was beautiful. Only that he had a look sometimes that sort of stuck with Peter, like a thorn, or a scar. To be haunted by that look, by those eyes, if something happened to Morse, well it was a prospect Peter was only too happy to be leaving behind.

So when they’d been stuck down in those godforsaken chalk tunnels, with the minutes ticking down, he’d made damn well sure Morse didn’t play the martyr. Peter was still his superior, afterall, and he wasn’t going to stand outside and watch Morse blown to bits. Better to be gone himself than left to carry that around.

They’d both made it out though. Hadn’t escaped his notice, either, the way Morse’s voice sounded when he shouted out Peter’s name, when he wasn’t sure. Stubborn sod had finally had a turn to see what it felt like to be the one left wondering. Served him right.

And the blast had momentarily broken the tension between them. Peter laughed, and felt lighter, as though all of it was already behind him. As though it would be that easy to let it all go.

He’d begun wrapping things up at work, started packing up his life, tried to forget.

But he hadn’t forgotten about the tie, exactly. And when he’d packed up his things for the move, he’d sort of known it was sitting there, in the back of the drawer, waiting. No reason to keep it. He’d certainly never wear it. Wouldn’t be caught dead in it. But somehow he couldn’t just chuck it in the bin like so much rubbish. So he’d wrapped it up in a shirt and stuffed it into a suitcase. Not because he wanted to keep it. Not because it meant anything. Just because there didn’t seem to be anywhere else to put it.

After the move he’d stuck the shirts and ties and suits he no longer needed up in the attic. Out of sight, out of mind. And they had been, mostly. All of it had, for a while.

It hadn’t rained at all that first month he came, a bone-dry, broiling June. The soil cracked, the grass withered brown and brittle, the farmers were full of prophecies and grumbles.

And then one night, long after he and Hope had gone to bed, he’d awoken to the sound of rain beating down on the roof. He’d gotten out of bed and gone out to the porch, to watch the storm. Water poured from the gutters in a deluge and the wide, open sky lit here and there with lightning. And it had all come flooding back.

Two nights before he and Hope were due to leave Oxford, when his flat was already mostly in boxes, when the rain was pouring down in buckets and the thunder rumbling its steady threats outside, he’d been lying in bed, unable to sleep, when he’d heard a knock at the door.

He’d opened it, knowing, and Morse had been standing on his doorstep, completely soaked through. Maybe he’d misplaced his umbrella somewhere. Maybe he was just that incapable of taking even the slightest care of himself.

But as Peter stepped silently aside and let him in, he wondered if it was something else. Something purposeful. There were so many little ways to hurt yourself, if you wanted to. If you needed to. Bearing the biting cold with only a scrap of a coat, ignoring hunger until it ate away at your insides, walking through torrential rain and lightning when any sane person would be tucked safely in bed. Well, sometimes feeling anything was better than feeling nothing at all. Peter knew that well enough himself.

And for the first time he let himself wonder what it must have been like for Morse, all those nights he’d walked the dark, deserted streets to knock on Peter’s door. Wondered what sort of longing it was he’d been answering all this time.

What they wanted from one another was usually fast, feverish, not rough exactly, but far from gentle. Usually Morse was hardly in the door before they started what he’d come for.

Only now Peter wondered if that was what he had  
come for. Because Morse just stood there, rain dripping from that damp mess of tawny curls down his face, somehow both angular and soft, his jacket and shirt plastered against his thin frame, his gaze on the floor, teeth tugging at his lower lip. He looked vulnerable in a way he hadn’t the other nights, or maybe before now Peter had just refused to let himself see.

Any other time it would have made him angry. Because to get by in this world you had to learn to look out for yourself, to look as if nothing could touch you. That was the lesson he’d been trying to teach Morse, in a way, ever since he’d first set eyes on him. The world was a terrible place. It would trample you, torment you, leave you gutted and empty, unless you grew skin thick enough to ward it off. Instead Morse walked around like an open wound, all that tenderness beneath those meager defenses a target. Anyone could see that. So Peter had taken aim, from the first, because if he didn’t someone else would. You couldn’t just prickle up like a hedgehog every time someone came at you, you had to learn to look as if it slid off your back, as if you didn’t give a damn about anyone but yourself. But, for all his supposed smarts, it was a lesson Morse had refused to learn.

Somehow, tonight, when he needed it most, Peter couldn’t make the anger come.

He lifted his hand and pushed back the curl that had fallen over Morse’s face, his fingers running through the wet strands and down to cradle the back of his neck, until Morse looked up at him with those asking eyes.

And Peter answered.

He drew Morse towards him until their mouths met, open and hungry, until Morse’s body was pressed against his, until Morse’s drenched clothes had soaked through his own vest and pants. Morse’s hands wrapped around his neck, grasping, pulling him closer.

Peter slowed, held Morse steady, and then untangled himself from his grip. Morse stood there looking up at him, hands curled to soft fists, breath heavy with want. Peter slid the sodden jacket from Morse’s shoulders.

Morse reached up towards him again, but Peter put a hand against his chest, then walked the few steps to the table to hang the jacket over the back of a chair.

“C'mere,” Peter said, a quiet command.

Morse walked over and stood in front of him. Just looked at him, all the arrogance and argument gone.

He wasn’t wearing a tie tonight. The collar of his shirt hung open loosely, baring his neck.

Peter reached up and undid the next button, and the next, noting the little shiver Morse gave, the way he swallowed when Peter reached the last button, down near his waist. Peter peeled the shirt off and laid it on the chair. His fingers skirted the bottom of Morse’s vest, teasing a whispered moan from his throat. He grabbed hold of the wet fabric and slipped it slowly up his stomach and over his head, laying it alongside his shirt. Morse’s pale, freckled skin glistened in the darkness, wet and trembling.

Peter pulled his own dampened vest off and set it on the chair. Then he walked over to Morse and let his eyes just roam over him for a moment, the way he usually never did. Allowed himself this long, studying look, the gift of it and the wound.

Then he trailed his hand in a slow, deliberate line down Morse’s chest and over his stomach, watched his eyes close at the touch, felt his breath hitch. His mouth brushed against Morse’s jaw, lingered just below his ear, breathing him in, then kissed down along his neck and over his shoulder, moving softly, slowly across his collarbone.

Morse leaned into his touch, skin slippery, head bowed against Peter’s neck, nuzzling and needy, fingertips pressing into Peter’s back. He pressed himself against Peter, hard and clinging, curling into him.

“I’m sorry,” Morse mouthed into Peter’s neck, “I know I shouldn’t have come.”

As if this wasn’t what Peter had lain awake longing for. As if everything in him wasn’t aching for this and this alone.

Peter put his hand against Morse’s cheek, firmly, to still him. He leaned his face close, until their foreheads touched, until he was looking right into those sky eyes, their breath warm against one another’s lips. He ran his thumb along the sharp line of Morse’s jaw, pressed his lips against Morse’s gasping mouth, ran his fingers through wet curls, refusing the urge to tug, to rush. Refusing to make it anything other than what it was, this last time.

It was usually the worst, right after. Suddenly feeling so exposed. The release gone, leaving only the sickening sediment of shame. There was only ever a moment of quiet between them, an obscenely awkward lull, before Morse fumbled to dress and leave, and Peter turned away and lit a cigarette. And still it was never quick enough for Peter. Because part of him always hated Morse, after. Because part of him felt something else, something far worse than hate.

Tonight they lay on the bed, beneath the thin cotton sheet, no longer touching, skin like pinpricks, eyes on their own separate selves. Dawn was still a few hours off, the inky blackness of the room swallowing up the silence between them.

Then Morse turned on his side, sat up and began to slide his legs off the bed, still not looking at Peter, still not saying a word.

Peter found that the thought of Morse leaving, of it being over, was more terrifying than the thought of what might happen if he stayed.

He reached out and laid his hand gently on the back of Morse’s shoulder. Not holding him back, just placing it there. Not a command. A question.

Morse stilled. Peter watched his back rise and fall in a deep, deciding breath. And then Morse lay back down on his side. He was motionless a moment, his face turned away. Then slowly he slid his warm body back to fold against Peter’s.

Peter took in a shaking breath, a little afraid to move, then curled against him, until their bodies were drawn together like two question marks.

Morse brought his hand back to rest over Peter’s, tentatively, as if he thought it just as likely to be slapped away as held. Peter moved his thumb up to trail softly over Morse's, willing his hand not to tremble.

Morse slid his fingers to thread through Peter’s, then drew their interlocked hands to his chest, winding Peter’s arm tighter around himself.

Peter rested his head against the tender stretch of freckled skin at the nape of Morse’s neck. He felt a traitorous warmth threatening to well behind his eyes, and swallowed it back down. He longed to brush his lips across the dip between Morse’s shoulder blades, to mark a kiss there. But even now there was only so much he could allow himself.

Instead he closed his eyes and fell asleep to the steady rise and fall of Morse’s breath.

When he woke up, Morse was gone.

A month later, and a world apart, Peter had sat on the porch remembering. He’d twisted the shiny band on his finger, watching the storm. He’d been grateful for the ocean between them, then. Anything less wouldn’t have been enough.

And now, five years later, he stood in the attic, the remnants of that long gone life strewn around his feet.

Peter lowered himself down onto the dust covered floorboards and wrapped an arm around the rough denim of his knees. He reached over to lift the tie out of the box and draped it over his legs. He let his thumbs rub over the soft nubs of the cheap fabric.

Dangerous. How good it felt between his fingers, how real, this last thing he could still touch.

He sat there for a few minutes, roaming the dusky hills between the past and the present.

Then he heard Hope downstairs, singing along to some country song on the radio, heard the children’s happy shrieks from out in the yard.

Nearly suppertime now.

He laid one of the rumpled shirts out on the floor and set the tie down in the center, neat and innocuous. He folded one side of the shirt over, followed by the other, then wrapped the top and bottom around to form a harmless parcel of fabric. Just an old shirt. Nothing more.

He opened a small box and placed the folded shirt at the bottom. On top he stacked some papers and snapshots, his old identification cards, and the Queen’s Police Medal.

The only things that still meant something.

He gently slid one flap beneath the other to close the box and tucked it safely away in the corner of the attic.

Then he gathered all the other bits and bobs into a bag, slowly descended the ladder, and firmly shut the attic door.

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing to seek refuge from the real world inside the heads of fictional characters... Thanks for reading!


End file.
